E3 2013: The Division, Ubisoft's MMO shooter

Ubisoft's claim that its new MMO shooter The Division will have a "persistent world" piqued Massively's collective interest. At E3, we chatted briefly with Game Director Ryan Bernard, who has previously worked on EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Warhammer Online. I asked what about the game and its persistent nature would appeal to MMO players and was told that actually, the team doesn't plan to make it "too persistent" at all. Each player will have his own little chunk of the world. Everything in that part of the world is persistent for him, and his friends can come over and help him out, kind of like Animal Crossing without the talking tanuki. The developers believe this will allow for a strong single-player experience while still having a visible impact on the player's slice of the world. There are places in the world that are persistent for everyone: the PvP areas. You won't want to travel around them without friends, but unfortunately, Bernard couldn't reveal more.

The game is being released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but Ubisoft hasn't ruled out other platforms or cross-platform play just yet.